Recently, due to development of technologies related to virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR), there has been an increase in demand for providing feedback through various sensations to increase user engagement with content. VR technology in particular was mentioned as one of the most promising future technologies at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Following such a trend, research for providing, beyond current user experience mostly limited to the visual and auditory senses, user experience through all senses of the human body including the olfactory and tactile senses has been actively conducted.
A thermoelement (TE), which is an element that receives electrical energy and causes an exothermic reaction or an endothermic reaction due to the Peltier effect, has been expected to be used in providing thermal feedback to a user. However, a conventional TE, which mainly uses a planar substrate, is difficult to attach to a body part of a user, and thus applications of the conventional TE have been limited.
However, as development of a flexible TE (FTE) is close to success, it is expected that the problems of the conventional TE will be overcome and thermal feedback will be effectively provided to a user.